Migrants scuffle with troops along border river
Hundreds of Central American migrants waded across the Suchiate River into southern Mexico on Monday in a new test of President Donald Trump’s Central America strategy to keep them away from the U.S. border.
Some scuffled with national guardsmen on the riverbank while others slipped through Mexican lines and trudged off on a rural highway in small groups. Immigration authorities nabbed more there and chased others into the brush.
Most, however, remained at the river’s edge or stood in its muddy waters trying to decide what to do next, after being blocked from crossing en masse over the border bridge leading to Ciudad Hidalgo.
“Mexico’s president said he would give us work and an opportunity and look,” said Esther Madrid, a Honduran vendor who left her six children in Honduras. Sitting on a rock among dozens of people who didn’t know what to do next, she offered only one word when asked if she would consider returning to San Pedro Sula: “Never.”
Mexico’s strategy, developed after the first migrant caravan in late 2018, to break up the mass of people repeatedly and into increasingly smaller groups appeared to be working. Over the weekend, government officials convinced about 1,000 people they should enter legally over the border bridge.
On Monday, migrants were detained at the river and along the highway. Those who continued could expect a gauntlet of highway checkpoints while trying to move north.
After the river crossing Monday, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute issued a statement saying that it would detain any migrants without legal status, hold them in detention centers and deport those who did not legalize their status.
Children suffered most in the clashes. On the Mexican riverbank an unconscious 14-year-old girl was carried away for medical attention. A guardsman said she had started convulsing in the commotion.
Later along the highway, a mother sobbed after realizing her youngest daughter had been separated from her when migrants tried to escape authorities.
While Mexico’s government says the migrants are free to enter — and could compete for jobs if they want to stay and work — in practice, it has restricted such migrants to the southernmost states while their cases are processed by a sluggish bureaucracy. Those who do not request asylum or some protective status would likely be detained and deported.
Trump has forced asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico, or apply for protection in Central American countries, effectively removing one of the escape valves for previous caravans. Under threats of trade or other sanctions from the Trump administration, Mexico has stopped an earlier practice of allowing migrants to cross its territory unimpeded.